Mandarin language

Chinese language

Mandarin is the national language of China. It is a group of related varieties of Chinese spoken across most of northern and southwestern China. The word "Mandarin" means language of the officials. 

Writing

Mandarin is written with Chinese characters Hàn Zì, which literally means 'Han characters'. Each Hanzi has its own pronunciation and meaning. Each character represents one word/ one idea. There are more than 10,000 such characters in this language. Originally these characters were actual drawing of the word they represented which were later simplified for convenience. Some eg.s are as follows-

Archaic	Seal script	Traditional Modern	Simplified	Pinyin	Gloss
		人	—	rén	human
		女	—	nǚ	female human
		子	—	zǐ	child
		日	—	rì	sun
		月	—	yuè	moon
		山	—	shān	mountain
		川	—	chuān	river
		水	—	shuǐ	water
		雨	—	yǔ	rain
		竹	—	zhú	bamboo
		木	—	mù	tree
		馬	马	mǎ	horse
		鳥	鸟	niǎo	bird
		龜	龟	guī	turtle
		龍	龙	lóng	dragon

Apart from these there are many compound words, which are combination of two words{drawings}.

Eg. 

• 火車 huǒ chē (lit. fire vehicle) locomotive, train
• 大人 dà rén (lit. big person) adult
• 打開 dǎ kāi (lit. strike open) open up (door, window, envelope, etc.)

Others are just for the sake of the sound. Eg.

 "媽 mā" (mom) is made by adding 女 (nǚ, human female) to 馬 (mǎ, horse). The "ma" part is only there to represent the sound.

Pronunciation

Chinese is a "tonal language". This means that the meaning of the word completely changes with the change in tone. Hence, the word maybe written in the same way, but the accents used changes the tone of the word, thereby changing the meaning. There are 4 tones-

For the first tone (flat or high level) we use a macron:

[ ˉ ] ā ē ī ō ū

 

For the second tone (rising or high rising) we use an acute accent:

[ ˊ ] á é í ó ú 

 

For the third tone (falling-rising or low) we use a caron/háček:

[ ˇ ] ǎ ě ǐ ǒ ǔ

 

For the fourth tone (falling or high-falling) we use a grave accent:

[ ˋ ] à è ì ò ù

For eg.

 

1st tone

2nd tone

3rd tone

4th tone

mā 妈

má 麻

mǎ 马

mà 骂

(mother, hemp, horse, to curse)

āi 埃

ái 癌

ǎi 矮

ài 爱

(dust, cancer, dwarf, love)

qiāng 枪

qiáng 墙

qiǎng 抢

qiàng 呛

(pistol, wall, to snatch, to choke)

tuī 推

tuí 颓

tuǐ 腿

tuì 退

(to push, dispirited, leg, to retreat)

Some common words and their pronunciations are as follows-

English	Pronounced	Pinyin	Chinese
Hello	Nee haoww	ni3hao3	你好
How are you?	Nee haoww mah?	ni3hao3 ma	你好吗
Good/ok	Haoww	hao3	好
Not good	Boo haoww	bu4hao3	不好
Have you eaten?	Nee chrr luh mah?	ni3 chi1 le ma	你吃了吗
I've eaten.	Wor chrr luh	wo3 chi1 le	我吃了
I've not eaten yet.	Wor hi may chrr	wo3 hai2 mei2 chi1	我还没吃
Good morning	Dzaoww-shung haoww	zao3shanghao3	早上好
Good afternoon	Sshyah-woo haoww	xia4wu3 hao3	下午好
Good evening	Wan-shung haoww	wan3shang hao3	晚上好
Bye-bye.	Bye-bye	bai4bai	拜拜

Bibliography

1. https://www.rocketlanguages.com/chinese/learn/pronunciation/ , 19/4/16, 7.28

2. http://www.chinahighlights.com/travelguide/phrasebook/ , 19/4/16, 7.15

3. https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mandarin_Chinese , 19/4/16, 6.59

4. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mandarin_Chinese , 19/4/16, 6.20